USDA provides instant access to market news

The USDA's new market news/Web portal is online and providing instant, real-time access to daily and historical reports on agricultural commodities.

The USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service operates the portal, which will enhance current market news Web site services. Livestock and grain market news is available as of Oct. 3 and other commodities will soon follow.

If you register and create an account, you can log into the portal and create your own market-summary charts to get snapshots of commodity prices based on location and dates. Registered users also can access features such as storing electronic bookmarks to quickly locate specific data, call up weather reports nationwide and make metric and currency conversions. There is no cost to register.